“I do not like to lie to you, Reagan. I lost control when he had you in the air. I need to feed. I told you that.”
“There is no way it’s my fault you lost control, so don’t even try to pin it on me.”
“I am simply reminding you of what happens when you hold me off.”
“Do you also want to be a dead body? Is that what you’re after? Keep it up and I’ll add you to the pile.” I braced two fingers to the mage’s neck.
“Is he okay?” one of the girls asked with a quivering lip. The other was already crying. Their distress was evident from their lack of questions regarding the fact that a naked man was holding a potentially injured man in the air by his shirt. With one hand. And no visible strain.
No, they weren’t based in reality just now.
I deflated. “Nope. Damn it!” I turned around, seeing a row of lights and people emerging from their houses. “Well, this all went horribly wrong. Drop him and get us out of here. Fast. We don’t need anyone to take pictures of our faces. Send some vampires out here tomorrow to make those ladies forget their own names, let alone the fact that they saw a monster kill a guy.”
“I will not appear in photos.”
“You are really hard to get along with right now, do you know that? Let’s hit his house really quickly before we leave. Hurry, before the cops—” A siren wailed in the distance.
Without warning, he scooped me into his arms and raced up the street, faster than thought. We were breaking so many magical rules it wasn’t funny, not to mention that we’d killed a mage whom the Mages’ Guild, his circle, and—most recently—a demon might employ and/or like. My second night in Seattle and already my enemies were stacking up. I had a gift.
Chapter Twenty
“Are you sure this is your chosen course of action?” Darius asked me as we pulled up near the mage bar to meet Callie and Dizzy.
Instead of going in himself, Darius had given me ten minutes to run into the mage’s house and get the stuff I couldn’t live without. Eleven minutes later, he’d dragged me out. After that, we’d stopped by the hotel so he could get some clothes on, and now here we were, ready for a beer and hopefully some good news.
The beer was the only sure thing.
“Yes. Callie isn’t great at making friends, and Dizzy is weird at the best of times. He might make friends, but he doesn’t inspire the kind of intimacy that will get someone to spill their secrets. Hopefully I can be the go-between.”
Darius shook his head as he exited the car. I pushed the door open and gingerly stepped on my ankle.
“Would you like me to carry you?” he asked, walking around the car to me.
I snickered. “Funny.”
His expression was serious.
“The reason I let you carry me the last time was because we had to flee the scene of a crime. That was about speed, not a tweaked ankle. Give me a break.”
“Do you heal at a faster rate than humans?” he asked, shutting the door for me. He adjusted his satchel around his shoulder.
“You keep forgetting that I am human.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” I said grudgingly.
“Why do you detest the side of you that isn’t human?”
I took a deep breath and paused at the bar door. “I’m sure my dad is a really swell guy, but he rules the land of evil. Of monsters. I don’t want to be reminded of that part of my genetic makeup.”
“Many demons actually do good. Spread love. Pleasure.”
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that new knowledge.
I shrugged. “Mainly, though, I only knew my mom. She raised me. Made me what I am. I want to identify with her, and she was human.”
“Human, but with the bloodline of the gods. In essence, she was more than human, more than a mage, like you. On either side, you are extraordinary. There is not one piece of you that is mundane. You should celebrate that.”
“I like mundane. Mundane keeps me safe.”
“You would not have been able to hide from what you are for much longer. You should be thankful you found me.”
“I didn’t find you, you arrogant ass. You stalked me. And why should I be thankful? Because the shifters will think I’m the enemy, or because I’ll get to be a feeding trough soon?”
“Because I can protect you in a way few others can.”
“Let me guess, this is going to lead into a conversation on bonding.”
“Well, since you brought it up…” Humor danced in his eyes.
I held up my hand, unable to stop myself from smiling. “No.”
“You say no now, but just wait. Your mind will change.”
“Nope.”
“I will rock your world. You will never be satisfied with that human cop.”
Those damn tingles washed over me again. “You’ll get blood, and that’s it. I’ll stand very still and rigid while I fulfill my promise. Then I’ll make your life hell. Somehow.”
He pulled the door open, his honeyed eyes delving into mine. “You already make my life hell,” he whispered. “In the best of ways.”
The man had a way with words—I’d give him that. “You probably banged your way through the nobles of France when you were a human,” I muttered, entering the dimly lit interior of the half-filled bar. “Even though women weren’t supposed to sleep around back then.”
“Women have always had the same desires when it comes to pleasure and passion. It is society that changes,” Darius said, stopping beside me. “Simply because it was declared wrong in the time, does not mean it didn’t happen. I deflowered a great many behind the veil of secrecy, and they loved me for it.”
“Oh, ew. Tone it down, Casanova. And I doubt they loved you for tarnishing their reputations.”
“Behind the veil of secrecy, I said. I have always been discreet, and I have never lacked for partners, single or otherwise, experienced or not—”
“Please stop.”
“I celebrate a woman who knows her desires, and who demands to have them fulfilled.”
“Seriously, stop.”
“Do you demand to have your desires fulfilled, Reagan?”
Not the tingles! “I demand that you shut it down, and to achieve that end, I’ll shoot you in the leg again like I did in the paddock. Is that what you’re after?”
“So violent.” He gave a dark chuckle. “You have passion in spades, ma puce. I can’t wait to experience it.”
“I don’t know what puce means, but it sounds dirty,” I muttered. I pulled up my leg, snatched a knife from the holster around my ankle, and stabbed him in the side. Just as quickly, I pulled it out of his body, wiped the blade on his expensive shirt, and shoved it back where it belonged. His side would heal, but his shirt was ruined. I knew he’d care more about the latter.
He barely flinched. His reaction was another dark chuckle.
That hadn’t worked out how I’d hoped.